Disturbances and Dislocations: Understanding Teaching and Learning Experiences in Australian Aboriginal Music

Abstract

One of the biggest debates in Australian Indigenous education today revolves around the many contested and competing ways of knowing by and about Indigenous cultures and the representation of Indigenous knowledges. Using Bakhtin's theories of dialogue and voice, my concern in this paper is to explore the polyphonic nature of power relations, performance roles and pedagogical texts in the context of teaching and learning Indigenous Australian women's music and dance. In this discussion, I will focus on my experiences as a lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland and my involvement in this educational setting with contemporary Indigenous performer Samantha Chalmers. Like a field experience, the performance classroom will be examined as a potential site for disturbing and dislocating dominant modes of representation of Indigenous women's performance through the construction, mediation and negotiation of Indigenous knowledge from and between both non-Indigenous and Indigenous voices.